Struggle for Labor in Bass: poll

Polling in the northern Tasmanian electorate of Bass indicates the Labor Party may struggle to keep the seat.

ReachTel's poll of 540 Bass voters for The Examiner newspaper shows Liberal candidate Andrew Nikolic on 60.3 per cent and Labor member Geoff Lyons on 39.7, after preferences.

ABC election analyst Anthony Green predicts Tasmania will be one of the worst states for Labor at the next Federal election.

"The biggest swing against Labor is likely to be in Tasmania," he said.

"The party is in a great deal of difficulty at the state level and if that flows through to the federal figures, then the sort of swing you're seeing in Bass would occur."

"Bass and Braddon, the two northern seats in the state are usually the first two to fall when there is any swing against Labor in Tasmania and Labor lost both seats in 2004 and, on election night that year, the result in Bass and Braddon was the first sign that Labor was going to lose that election."

In 2007, Labor snatched Bass back from the Liberal Party and retained it in 2010 with an improved margin of 6.7 per cent.

"The Labor Party has come off, is coming off a very high base at the last election, they did very well," Mr Green said.

"They lost Denison but they certainly steamrolled the Liberals and the rest of Tasmania and what you're seeing is a correction to that very bad Liberal result, on top of a swing against the Labor Party elsewhere in the country."

"It's got to be remembered, the Liberal Party had their worst result in Tasmania at the last election in 60 years. It was the worst Liberal result in Tasmania for that long so the Liberal Party has got plenty of room to bounce back since the last election."

Mr Green says the method of the phone poll has to taken into account.

"ReachTEL is an automated polling system where they ring up and an automatic question is asked."

"Whether their two-party preferred has sometimes been a bit problematic but what they're measuring in that poll measures what is being reported elsewhere.

"The state polls for Labor in Tasmania which are produced by another opinion polling company are just terrible."

"There have been very few federal polls reported in Tasmania but all the talk is is that the Labor Party is in big trouble and Bass would be the first seat to fall," he said.

The incumbent Geoff Lyons concedes the Labor Party needs to sell its message to voters more strongly.

"Of course there are still things to be done; we do need to work on the education system, we do need to get the disability insurance scheme up and, in my opinion, we need to sort out the freight which is the major issue for Tasmanian industries."

"They're obviously encouraging results, but of course I am taking nothing for granted," he said.

"To me, it appears this Prime Minister intends to stay in the job for as long as possible so what I am looking at is potentially 10 more months of campaigning and so I am going to try and make every day a winner."